Stars and Silence
by KeplersDream
Summary: Sequel to "Memento Mori." Here was the Doctor, the King who would be Man, never having seen his companion for the goddess-woman that she always was. He saw her as the same 21-year-old shop girl from Peckham that he had left in an alternate universe. Not The Woman Who Walked Worlds, the Woman Who Made the Doctor Better. The Doctor's Doctor. The Doctor Who Left the Doctor Behind.


Author's notes: I've been talked into doing a sequel to "Memento Mori." Whilst I intended on writing it as a single episode, I do see potential in continuing the story a bit further. I've been asked to explore Tentoo's reaction – this I will do, but not in the way that the shippers want. It's also an experimental piece to mull over issues that I have with "The Mirror and the Other." So, let's see where this takes us. Finally, a reminder that, like "Memento Mori," this will not be Doctor-friendly. We have enough Ten ass-kissing fics out there.

* * *

 **Stars and Silence**

The Doctor paced slowly out of the seedy Brixton pub toward one of the few empty lots remaining in Greater London. Not that this was **really** Greater London, thought the alien ruefully. Drinking, thinking and walking were never wise, especially as a human incapable of multitasking whilst pissed, he noted passively as he nearly fell into a parked car. It had been a little over two years since he had been left by his Time Lord double to spend the rest of his existence in this pseudo-universe. He was now as human and ordinary as any other Londoner in Pete's World: he hated his job at Torchwood, he went home to an empty and dark flat and he watched telly until he fell asleep on his worn sofa. Every Friday after work, like other bored and angry Londoners who wanted a pint and a forum to vent their frustrations, the Doctor visited this little pub where no one recognised him, got shit-faced and, hours later, exited the pub to the open plot of land up the street. On occasion, he was able to persuade an equally pissed blonde girl with amber eyes to give him a quick shag in her car or behind the pub before leaving her there in disgust. He always called them by one single name.

After taking five minutes, twelve seconds longer than it would have normally due to copious amounts of ale, vodka and banana daiquiris, the Doctor finally reached the open space. He slid his sonic screwdriver out of his blue trouser pocket and turned off the street lamp. The lack of light obscured the dead grass, litter and undoubtedly toxic water seeping from the ground and illuminated billions and billions of stars. That night was exceptionally good for stargazing; London's habitual rains and clouds usually made difficult to spot Venus. He could see, faintly, the edge of the Milky Way and the direction that would take him 250 million light-years to Gallifrey. On Fridays, the Doctor allowed himself to think of Gallifrey, to wonder if a planet like it existed in this universe. Eventually, he would know, in about ten years, when the TARDIS left infancy and passed into adolescence. But chronologically, he would be approximately fifty Earth years and more tired than he had been at eight hundred. Whilst he could visit Galaxy M87 and have his cells forcibly slowed to the point where his aging would take hundreds of years, a possibility given his Gallifreyan heritage, the Doctor did not welcome additional centuries of loneliness and isolation. But since no one here wanted him, he did not see an alternative.

He growled at that last thought, at the other topic that he allowed himself on Fridays: the memory of a certain blonde-haired, amber-eyed girl from Peckham. The woman on the beach who kissed him and then left him on this uncivilised rock optimistically called a planet. Rose had been gone two years and everyone blamed him. Though Pete had kept him on for his scientific and extra-terrestrial knowledge, he found the darkest office of the lowest level of Canary Wharf to put his laboratory. Jake stopped speaking to him two years ago. Despite working at Torchwood for over two years, no one knew of his existence; Canary Wharf Security routinely verified and re-verified his badge for entrance. After Rose's disappearance, Jackie barred him from the Tyler Mansion and screamed and hollered at him during the few occasions when their paths crossed.

But it wasn't his fault – she left!

Staring at the stars, the Doctor failed to hear the footfalls of a man approaching his position in the field. He was slightly shorter, with a slender build, black-haired and blue-eyed, wearing blue jeans and a black fleece jacket. A moment later, he stood next to the alien reeking of alcohol and shook his head. "When will you learn?" he asked.

"Why the hell are you here?" spat the Doctor bitterly.

The man sighed, gazing up at the stars. "Every Friday, same reason."

"Well," the alien slurred, intently studying a star cluster to the right of the path to Gallifrey, "find your own stargazing spot. 'His is mine." He gestured slightly with his right index finger to the stars, causing him to lose the precarious battle over balance and fall to the ground. "You've taken 'nuff from me. You helped her get the vortex manipulator," he muttered from the cold, wet mud.

"Oh, I'm at fault?" demanded the shorter man as he hauled the drunken Doctor to his feet. "Listen, buddy," he stated in a Montréalais accent, "we have this conversation every week. And every week, you come out less wise than before."

"Actually, no," the Doctor interrupted, "you're just a cog in the Universal Wheel. The Universe rarely lets me win at anything. Everyone dies before me, everyone leaves me." Suddenly, he looked up at the stars. "At least the satellites keep me company. Hello, Yanks! Hello, Rassiya!" He waived cheerfully, swaying at the same time. "Yes, I know you can see me! Fuck you, too!" The wave changed into a bras d'honneur. Then he seemed to sober. "Well, at least until you burn up in the atmosphere. I guess you die, too."

The man rolled his eyes. "Are you capable of having an adult conversation, Doctor?"

The Doctor regarded the man for a moment, then shrugged. "Of course! I'm a genius, me. Because I'm a genius, I know that adult conversations rarely end with any topic other than beans on bloody toast," he hiccupped, then continued, "and 'Keep calm and carry on.' Nope, I'm not interested in adult conversations."

Shaking his head, the black-haired man murmured, "This is why she left you."

Anger and intoxication fuelling the Doctor's repressed fury, the alien faced him squarely, his eyes darkening. "What did you say?" he demanded.

Exhaling, his stargazing partner calmly answered, "Doctor, you're so busy feeling sorry for yourself, you never really thought about how she felt. You still don't, mostly because you see her as an extension of you. Humans and other beings are merely pawns in your chess game. She got smart and ended it as a draw."

Shocked that anyone would describe him in terms other than wonderful or destroyer, the Doctor, eyes still blazing, pressed his lips together in silence. After several moments of no rebuttal or gaslighting, the man seized the rare opportunity to resume his observation. "I know you find it hard to believe, Doctor, but she – not some fifty-year-old geek with a PhD from Cambridge – built the Dimension Cannon. Yeah, she had help, but it was her design. Without it, Donna Noble wouldn't have been able to communicate that little two-word message to you. Being your oblivious self, you wouldn't have known and the Daleks would have annihilated the multiverse. Instead of acknowledging her contribution with a choice, you, the other you and the Doctor-Donna decided her fate as if she were a dog and you had to find another owner."

"That's not true!" yelled the Doctor, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. "She is my s…It hurt to give her up, to send her with me in this hellhole of a universe. But here, she would be loved. She'd have her family, Jake, and…"

"And you?" interjected the man. "No, she didn't have you. That's what she wanted. Well, what she thought she wanted. It had nothing to do with you splitting into two men. She knew it was you. The problem was acknowledging her feelings and her proper existence. So long as she shared yours, you could take the coward's way out and act like she knew. After Norway, she realised, correctly, that you'd never share her existence. Did it ever occur to you that she liked your previous incarnation less than her first?"

"That's bollocks!" retorted the Doctor automatically. He was beginning to metabolise the alcohol in his system and the man knew time was turning against him.

"Is it? She's loyal to a fault. Makes sense given where she grew up; even in this universe, Peckham's not a nice place. Military curfew and all. Her first Doctor was also loyal, as the only Time Lord left in existence. He came for her; the second you did not. True, she liked how you looked. Believe me," he added a bit resentfully, "I was reminded enough. But good looks do not make an enduring relationship."

The Doctor sneered in the chilly London air and loosened his boring blue and white striped tie that choked him every time he put it on; Jackie had given it to him shortly after his arrival. "She didn't choose you. Not good enough, either, eh?"

"It was her choice," he said. "Why should she be satisfied with a relationship that doesn't make her happy?"

Laughing mirthlessly, the Doctor leant back like he was going to howl at the stars. "Oh, if she only knew. If she only knew how many times I thought about finding some useless star or some pisser black hole to blow up just so I could force the TARDIS to bring me here. But it would have been a one-way trip. No Time Lord to protect the other universe. No one to protect Martha, Donna, the Earth from the Master. So when the opportunity presented itself, I grew this me out of my handy spare hand. Two Time Lords for the price of…one." He trailed off, quietly mourning the loss of Donna Noble.

"And you're doing such a good job, too. I mean, living a life of nothing, getting drunk every week and shagging every shit-faced blonde that crosses your path. I didn't know that was a Time Lord thing."

"Oi, fuck off," hissed the Doctor. "I've had a shite two years."

"Right, poor bugger," replied the man glibly.

"What do you want? I did the best I could. I couldn't stay here and she couldn't be there. Not with River…Anyway, here I am and she's…" he gazed up at the same star for the sixth time that night and softly concluded, "…somewhere."

His companion watched him furtively for several moments, sporadically glancing up and down, as if to surmise precisely which star he was observing ever so keenly. Finally, and subtly giving up, he spoke, "Then why are you here? Why not get on with your life?"

The Doctor glared viciously at him. "Why are you here? Hmm? Enjoying your Schadenfreude?"

"At least I have a chum at home," he smoothly replied.

The alien glowered. About six months after Rose left, the Québécois bastard met the newly-hired Ianto Jones at Torchwood. The office had not been the same since she disappeared – the Director having become much more short-tempered than ever and Jake burying himself in drink and adrenalin – but the blossoming romance had brought new gossip and a fresh start for Torchwood. Soon after, Ianto took the place of the missing blonde and the Bastard became the companion to the new leader. Though he was relegated to the basement of Canary Wharf, the Doctor slyly followed this partnership with both interest and envy, another reminder of what might have been. By the time Ianto moved in with him, the Doctor had shagged Unknown Blonde Bint Number Seven.

"See that's the thing, Doctor. For the nine hundred-ish years you've spent among humans, you've failed to learn the most fundamental thing about them. While you were moping over their short lifespans and whatever excuse you could concoct, you forgot that to be loved, you have to love. I loved Rose. Perhaps not as much as you, but I did. I loved her enough to have faith in her ability to love, to make decisions that were best for her. I couldn't give her what she needed – freedom and adventure. Like you, ironically. You, however, held her to an impossibly high standard – never to die, never to grow up. Not even you're capable of that, Doctor. You couldn't stop Time, so this was the next best thing."

Once again, the Doctor sneered at the man, laughing and seething at the same time. "That's a rather detailed analysis, Sigmund Freud, but there's one small problem," he gestured with his thumb and index finger, "I'm here. He's not. I'd get to grow old with her."

Reaching into his fleece pocket, the Quebecer pulled out a pack of John Players. He offered a cigarette to the Doctor, who declined, and lit his own, puffing on and removing it in thought. "You're the same man, more or less. You told her so. You insisted upon it. The same man who would judge a human for being human, despite being part-human himself. You see people as instants, events and participants in events in Time, yet she's growing physically and emotionally within that instant. She would never have been good enough, Doctor."

Though relatively sober, the Doctor balled his fists in pure anger, ready to strike. "That's not bloody true! She's my everything! She always was!"

"That's not what she came to believe. But it didn't need saying, did it?"

Sinking to his knees, the Doctor shivered brokenly in the cold Brixton night air as the Quebecer finished his cigarette and dropped the butt into the mud next to the kneeling man. "We have this conversation every Friday, Doctor, and I'm tiring of it. Enjoy your stars. Bonne soirée."

The Doctor weakly called out Jean's name in a plea to return and finish the argument, to give him hope, to remind him why Rose was at fault and he was just a victim of Fate. Jean kept walking away; two minutes later, he heard the motor of a car and its wheels scrape gently across pavement. Silence fell upon the street and empty field, save for the distant stars and one human-alien hybrid who wept bitter tears at the knowledge that a man he barely knew understood Rose better than he, a being who could – at one time – see all that ever was and could be.


End file.
